44: THERE IS A CURE

THERE IS A CURE

Hanna was shocked to see a battered Iris walk into the bedroom in the middle of the night. She looked haggard, shaking like a leaf while her body was so cold.

Hanna immediately jumped from her bed and approached Iris. Panic and concern filled her eyes. She had been trying to find her for the past few days and get any information about her whereabouts, but the only thing that she could gather was the fact that Iris was in the alpha's bedroom, that was why the mistress looked so agitated, as if she would throw a punch at anyone, who made even a trivial mistake.

But no one knew whether she was still alive or not.

She was thinking of going to the alpha in the morning, but now she saw her dear missy standing at the door, hugging herself and looking so miserable.

"Oh, my dear… where have you been?" Hanna immediately rushed toward Iris and hugged her close.

Once Iris felt the warmth of Hanna's arms around her, the only person that she knew wouldn't put her in harm's way, she broke down into tears in an instant. She felt exhausted, she had dragged her tired body to this room in fear that Cane would change his mind and throw her to those savages regardless.

She was afraid for her life and what would happen to her. Her future was so bleak.

"Hanna… Hanna…" Iris kept crying, bawling her eyes out, until her voice turned hoarse and her throat was in pain. Her ears kept ringing because of the strangulation and she was in so much pain, physically and mentally.

"It's okay my dear, it's okay…" Hanna hugged her tighter to give her a sense of protection that she was not alone. She was not alone in this world and she would do whatever to keep her safe, though what she could do was very limited.

They stayed like that until past midnight and Iris had slightly calmed down, probably because she was so tired after bawling her eyes out. Though she didn't say anything about what had happened to her, what the alpha had done to her and why he confined her for days, Hanna knew better than to ask.

"I will run a bath for you. A warm bath will help you to calm down better, okay?" Hanna said.

Thankfully, this room had a small bathroom and a small bathtub inside, which was the only comfort that Hanna could offer to Iris.

She nodded, thinking a warm bath would feel good, since she had not yet taken one for days.

But then, when Hanna had prepared everything and even sprinkled flower petals that she could find in the garden, Iris remembered about the mark on her neck.

"I- I want to bathe by myself," she said. "I want to be alone."

At first, Hanna didn't agree, but then when she saw how disturbed Iris looked and how she desperately wanted some alone time, she backed down.

"I will be right here if you need anything, okay?" She cupped her face, making sure that she understood what she was saying.

Iris nodded and then stepped back, as she closed the bathroom door.

Once she was alone and was sure that Hanna wouldn't come back into the bathroom, Iris slowly stripped off her dress and looked at her body. There was a blurry mirror in the bathroom, where she could see her mark closely and felt a lump forming in her throat.

Around her neck, bruises started to form and it wouldn't look good in the morning. If Hanna noticed this, she would make a fuss over it.

Iris sighed, she felt so tired, as she walked toward the bathtub and dipped herself in the water. The tub was so small, she needed to fold her legs, but the warm water felt so nice against her skin.

Iris looked at her arms and saw more bruises. The alpha indeed didn't care to be gentle with her. Why would he?

In the end, Iris stayed there until the water became cold and Hanna knocked on the door to check on her condition.

==========================

Iris got a fever after she returned, but Hanna found the healer again and asked her help. Even though she did it reluctantly, she helped her.

Therefore, today, when Iris felt slightly better, she returned to the mines, despite Hanna telling her to take more rest.

"No, I don't want to be left alone in the room." She was mortified that the alpha would call her and punish her, though if he wanted to do that, working in the mines wouldn't save her from him.

Because of that very reason and how Hanna failed to make sure she stayed on the bed, here she was, under the scorching sun.

Iris found one magic stone, which she hid under her belt. The alpha took her magic stone and the book, thus she couldn't figure out anything yet, but she could still feel the magic stones that surrounded her. She could feel them and there were a lot.

The more she spent her time in the mines, the more sensitive she was. This was also one of the reasons why she wanted to come back here.

Easily, Iris found another stone and sneaked it into her belt again as she thought, two was enough. The next time she found the third one, she would hand it over and get herself a nice and warm meal.

She intended to go to the library again tonight and wished that she wouldn't find anyone having sex there.

And that was what she did.

After the sun set and she showed two magic stones to Stone, who looked at her, baffled, she got a warm meal and a little chunk of meat.

"How can you find those magic stones?" Stone asked her in his gruff tone. He had worked in the mines before. As it wasn't an everyday occurrence, he knew how hard it was to find a stone, let alone two in a day.

His jaw probably would have dropped if he were to know that Iris actually found four, seven in total, since she started working on this site.

"I don't know. I just found it." Iris munched on her little meat and drank her warm soup, staring at him innocently. He obviously didn't believe her.

Later that night, after Iris made sure that Hanna had fallen asleep, she sneaked out of the bedroom and walked toward the library. She used to do this, even when her father was still the alpha, thus she was familiar with the best places to hide and how to avoid the patrolling guards.

Once she was in the library, Iris knew which shelves that she should go to and found the book rather quickly than the last time she was here.

Iris came to this place with two magic stones that she got that day and started to look for what kind of stones were those.

However, when she perused the book, from the corner of her eyes, she caught a book title that made her stop reading as she lifted her head to look at that book closely.

It was a book about ancient creatures. For some reason, Iris was intrigued and pulled it out from the shelf and started perusing it briefly.

Her fingers stopped flipping the pages when she gasped to see the illustration of a lycan. The monster that she saw in the basement of the rickety hut. The monster that the alpha had shifted into.

It was a lycan. A cursed shifter, who had performed dark magic.

"Impossible…" Iris stared at the description of it, but she couldn't find many things there, aside from a lycan was a shifter, who had broken the rule of nature and tried to use magic, which was a power that didn't belong to them in the first place.

Therefore, as punishment, they would turn into a lycan, the cursed shifter, every new moon.

Iris lifted her head and tried to think what night that day and she gasped in shock. It was indeed a new moon.

"Your curiosity knows no bounds."

The book and two magic stones dropped to the floor at the sound of Cane's voice that rang inside this quiet library. Iris didn't know that she was not alone until he came into her peripheral vision. She blanched at the sight of him.

Meanwhile, one of the magic stones rolled on the floor and stopped right under Cane's shoes. He bent down to take it and inspected the magic stone.

"You sneaked this out again." Cane's dark eyes fell on Iris, as she took a step back, to put a distance between them. It was her instinct to be away from the alpha, because he emanated danger for her.

"I found four today and I gave two to the slave trainer."

"And you think it is justified for you to keep the other two?"

Iris couldn't answer that, but she couldn't not look at him, just in case he was saying something and she missed it. She didn't want to upset him after what happened.

And before she answered the question, Cane picked the book from the ground and started to look through it. From the title alone, he knew what kind of book Iris was reading.

"A lycan." Cane picked the second magic stone and then put the book on the table, as he was only a step away from Iris. She couldn't take another step back because her back was already pressing against the bookshelf. "What have you learned?"

Iris cleared her throat and answered his question honestly based on what she had read earlier.

"It was a lycan. The monster that I saw was a lycan. Did you perform dark magic?" she asked gingerly. This time, she looked him in the eyes, so she would be able to see his reaction, but his expression remained unreadable.

Cane closed the distance between them again, until he was only a hair's breadth away from her, as he stared down at her neck, which was covered by her curly hair. She had let loose her hair in order to cover her neck, since none of the dresses she owned had a high collar.

He brushed away her hair to see his mark on her and she flinched when the tips of his fingers grazed her skin. He could also see the bruises on her neck from when he tried to strangle her.

The mark was so glaring now that the skin had healed from the biting. He glared at it with so much hostility, but then when he blinked his eyes, it disappeared, his expression returned to being stoic.1

"Have you told anyone about this?"

Iris immediately shook her head. "Not even Hanna saw the mark."

Cane said nothing, he dropped the two magic stones into her hand and then walked away from her, leaving her inside the library alone.

Iris was not sure whether she had to follow him or not, but seeing the magic stones in her hand that he handed over again to her, she took it as him not minding her keeping them. After all, he took her magic stone last time.

And so, Iris spent many hours inside the library, perusing the books with no one bothering her. She ended up learning a few interesting things about magic stones and was fascinated by it.

But then, the most interesting part was when she found a book about the lycans and everything that entailed the curse. How to deal with the curse and how to help a shifter when the new moon came.

She was not sure whether Cane knew about this or not, but she wanted to let him know if she had a chance.

Especially the part where the curse for the lycan could be lifted by a Serafim. It was the title for a woman, who held a great divine power, but such a person lived on a different continent.

"Did the alpha know about this? The curse can be cured…"

pqdm.com